


Defying Definition, or Life After You've Stopped Giving a Damn

by Neurotoxia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Best Friends, Character Study, Domestic Bliss, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 07:28:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neurotoxia/pseuds/Neurotoxia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John had given up on defining. Sherlock had never cared to define. So maybe they were a couple, maybe they were together -- just not in the way everyone assumed. If even the infallible Oxford Dictionary failed to give them a definition, how could they be expected to put a label on it? They were were just that: John and Sherlock in comfortable togetherness.</p><p>Written for the Sherlock BBC Commfest on LJ</p>
            </blockquote>





	Defying Definition, or Life After You've Stopped Giving a Damn

**Author's Note:**

> I used the commfest to get my first Sherlock fic out there and would like to thank my fabulous beta K. for being inspiring and getting me through the fretting you do when you write for a fandom for the first time. Credit for the title also goes to them. I hope everyone enjoys this little introspective piece, and especially the original prompter!

John had given up on defining. Any definition was inadequate. As was the case with most things that concerned Sherlock Holmes.

Many people readily jumped to the conclusion that he and Sherlock were romantically involved and shared more than a living room and a laboratory that occasionally served as a kitchen: that they were a couple. The standard definition of a couple didn't fit for them: "Two people who are married or otherwise closely associated romantically or sexually." How about the Thesaurus? "twosome; newly-weds, partners, lovers, cohabitees." No, these didn't fit, either. The meaning he's looking for wasn't listed in his dictionary. Because contrary to popular belief, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson did not shag each other's brains out on a regular basis. And neither were they married or about to marry.

John had been adamant about correcting people in the beginning. No, they weren't a couple. No, they didn't sleep together. No, he wasn't Sherlock's boyfriend. No, he wasn't gay.  
He had long since given up on trying to correct people. They saw what they wanted to see anyway. And since Sherlock didn't care what people thought of him, he had never contested the presumptions anyway. John knew there were a lot of things he could learn from Sherlock and occasionally not caring was one of them.

Not that John would admit it, but his small confrontation with the supposedly dead Irene Adler in the industrial building might have helped him to see more clearly. It had never mattered whether John was gay or not, Sherlock and he _were_ a couple. One that refused to be labeled and filed away somewhere in the standardized definitions of couple.

Some liked to call John's and Sherlock's friendship (relationship? partnership?) an "unhealthy attachment," but John couldn't disagree more. They certainly had an attachment. John's priorities might seem a bit confused to the outside world when he would blow off a date with a woman just to go looking for a specific type of weed growing on the roadside of the freeway with Sherlock. Though John had long since been suspecting that his life with Sherlock was likely incompatible with long-term relationships. And he wasn't sure whether he even wanted one. Sherlock was the constant in his life and he found himself strangely satisfied with the knowledge. He would protest any day if someone called their attachment "unhealthy" - John didn't know anything or anyone more beneficial to his health than Sherlock. He had managed what his therapist couldn't. Sherlock had given his life a new meaning and possibly saved it by that. On the worst of days, when John still had been dwelling in the small, bland bedsit, the gun in the drawer had slowly started to look more and more appealing. He owed Sherlock so much. More than the man could even begin to fathom. Or probably could anyway. Deduced from John's shoelaces, for all he knew.

People like Sally Donovan and Anderson could keep shaking their heads, throwing John looks of pity as if they couldn't believe that anyone would willingly follow the 'freak' around for longer than a week. The only reason John hadn't punched either of them for their snide remarks was out of respect for Lestrade. The man still stood by Sherlock's side despite his team thinking he was crazy for doing it and Sherlock being more than occasionally condescending and irritating towards him. They had something in common there.

* * *

"Yeah, still looks like Freak in here," Sally Donovan muttered when she trailed reluctantly behind Lestrade into 221b; all the while glancing around with an arched eyebrow.

"Good Afternoon to you, too, Sergeant Donovan." John lowered his newspaper enough to give her a look that told her exactly that he didn't think much of her lack of common courtesy, at least towards him. He didn't expect a friendly greeting but John had never done anything to her. Except being Sherlock's friend.

"Still haven't properly moved in, Doctor Watson?" She ignored John's jab and scanned the flat while Lestrade rolled his eyes in the background. Apparently, he knew as well as John that this was headed into another round of 'Insult the Freak.' "Nothing has changed since the last drugs bust."

Judging by her small smile, one of the fonder memories. Good thing that Sherlock wasn't around, or else he and Donovan would have started to trade insults right now. He wished they both could bite their tongues sometimes. Sally Donovan was a very good detective sergeant and John respected her for that, but they would never become friends; her hatred for Sherlock ensured that. John couldn't completely begrudge her those feelings: Sherlock _was_ insufferable in her presence.

"I have properly moved in months ago, thank you."

"Figures that Sherlock Holmes wouldn't share his flat, but only allow you to be graced by his presence as long as you don't disturb the order of things." Smile of pity and glee: She thought that she found another justification for her aversion to anything Sherlock.

John just smiled the kind of smile that could freeze up a polar bear and ducked back behind his newspaper, relieved to be spared the temptation of sarcastic comments as he hear Sherlock coming up the stairs.

* * *

Poor John Watson, so completely overshadowed by Sherlock Holmes that he wasn't even allowed to add a cushion to the sofa. John barely acknowledged the "concerns", a noncommittal smile of pity for those who just didn't understand - the kind of smile he had certainly learned from Sherlock. Or possibly Mycroft, who had perfected the Art of Insincere Smiles.

True, most of their "interior design" bore the trademark of Sherlock Holmes but John would never feel more at home than in the cozy and sometimes insane bubble that was 221b. He didn't have many possessions of his own in the first place. Had never collected much, had most of his life lived in places that already came furnished and none of them had made John feel particularly at home. The army had trained him into minimalism, everything he hadn't been very attached to had gone to Harry and Clara before he had got shipped out to Afghanistan. 

After the war, his life had been even more sparse. Black and white, occasional shades of grey. Everything monochrome, desaturated and bland. Until Sherlock had stepped into his life like a hurricane and splashed blindingly bright colors across the white canvas that had been John's post-war life. Not only that, Sherlock had handed John a brush and paint to help him with the task.

In turn, John had taken to calming the wild Jackson Pollock painting that was Sherlock. Added some red to the magenta, a little peppermint to even out the neon green. It was an easy assumption that Sherlock took John for granted.

* * *

"You know he treats you like a lapdog, right?", Anderson said as he turned to John who had been taking pictures of the crime scene according to Sherlock's directions over the phone. This scene was only a five, so far; no getting out of the house.

"Can we not have this conversation?", John sighed. 

"Oh, touchy. Although you're aware that he'd only be more interested in you if you were a corpse in a morgue?" Anderson smiled one of his holier-than-thou smiles. Sometimes, John knew exactly why Sherlock couldn't stand him.

"Anderson, could you go and be obtuse someplace else? I can hear John's braincells begging for mercy from here. Don't you have a crime scene to ruin?" Sherlock's voice came like ice over the speaker of John's phone. "And John, turn the speaker off. Hearing Anderson gives me a headache."

While John put the phone to his ear again, Anderson stalked off, clearly aggravated. 

"I suggest Indian for dinner and already took the liberty to order. See to it that you're back in forty-five minutes," Sherlock said and hung up. John allowed himself a quiet chuckle and put his phone back in his pocket; apparently Sherlock had noticed him staring wistfully at that Indian cooking show earlier today.

* * *

The general population was utterly dense. Sherlock certainly was a pompous, arrogant git who drove John up a wall more often than not; but his desire to change Sherlock was limited to a bit of fine-tuning. _He_ knew Sherlock cared and wasn't that all that mattered? Small gestures, such as Sherlock happening to play John's favorite classical piece -- Sibelius' Violin Concerto in D minor -- on the violin on his birthday or a can of beer in the fridge when work at the surgery had been especially stressful. Or more obvious clues such as breaking the arm of a criminal who had tried (and nearly succeeded) stabbing John after he had confronted him in a back alley. Lestrade had looked a bit skeptical when Sherlock insisted that he had nothing to do with the fact that the man's bones were fractured in at least three places.

Sherlock cared enough to accept Star Wars and James Bond DVDs next to his collection of autopsy recordings and had only offered one or two condescending remarks about John's "dull and foreseeable" choice of crime novels when he had shoved them into the shelves. He had deduced the storyline and the culprit by a glance at the blurb, and was of course not the least bit sorry that he had spoiled John's reading. The books about medicine, anatomy and biology had found more acceptance with his flatmate. Even Sherlock Holmes couldn't criticize a list of all 206 bones in the human body, as long as it was correct of course. 

John's RAMC mug looked perfectly natural next to the Petri dishes containing seven different types of mold labeled in Sherlock's neat handwriting. The well-worn dark jacket on the coat rack didn't look an inch out of place while snuggling with Sherlock's dashing coat. Their lives had blended together almost immediately after John had taken the second bedroom in 221b. Comfortably, and almost unnoticeably. 

John couldn't care less what the world thought. He had never felt happier or more at home than when he was chasing around London with Sherlock, giggling at crime scenes, conspiring against Mycroft or sitting at home with a cup of tea while Sherlock rambled in the background about the effects of nitric acid on eyeballs in humid environments. For that, he could deal with human liver next to the butter and a romantic candle on the table at Angelo's. Sherlock, Baker Street; it was home. And John wouldn't trade it for the world.


End file.
